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Shanahan has praise for Thomas and Rambo

After this weekend's final rookie camp session, Redskins Coach Mike Shanahan briefed reporters on a variety of subjects, ranging from the health of draft picks Jordan Reed and Chris Thompson to his impressions of Alfred Morris’s younger brother, Shawn, a camp invitee.

Here’s a rundown of the key points from Sunday's news conference:

Shanahan raved about the versatility of safeties Phillip Thomas and Bacarri Rambo. During Sunday’s drills, Rambo made a nice interception on a contested ball, while Thomas picked off deflected pass. “Any time you have motions and shifts and tight ends with the type of talent they have nowadays, you have to be able to be able to play both positions,” Shanahan said. “The good part about it, they have the size and athletic ability to play both positions.”

Rambo said he spent the majority of the five practices lined up at free safety.

Shanahan also revealed that Thomas and Rambo both scored well on pre-draft exams administered by the team. “We have different tests that they take that tell us what kind of mental quickness they have, what kind of dedication, commitment, those types of things that are very important to us,” he said. “Those two guys, one had a 10 and one had a 9 out of 10 points. That’s as good as you see."

Reed, the team’s third round pick out of Florida, did not participate in drills this weekend because of a leg injury he suffered prior to arriving. Shanahan said the tight end was suffering from quadriceps injury that led to knee soreness. Reed said the injury involved a bone bruise near his knee that has lingered from last season. “He had a little bit of a pull of his quad and soreness in the knee because of the quad,” Shanahan said. “We’re going to put him through rehab and hopefully he’ll be able to go in a couple of weeks. We just don’t want to push him too hard. Our key is to get him ready for the season.”

Thompson, the Redskins’ fifth rounder out of Florida State, is on target to be fully recovered by training camp. “It’s been six months since he had the ACL” injury, Shanahan said. “He’ll be full go, according to the doctors, by the time we open camp. That will be right at eight months. He’s working out now and doctors say the ACL is looking great. He’s a guy we think can help us and a guy we had ranked very high. We believe if he didn’t have that injury he would have been a first, second round draft choice. That’s how we had him ranked.”

There were also a number of interesting names on the list of 48 invitees. Among them: former Penn State quarterback Matt McGloin; Alfred Morris’ kid brother Shawn Morris out of D-III Birmingham-Southern; a pair of RG3’s teammates at Baylor, running back Jarred Salubi and Ike Williams; and Andrew Robiskie, the son of former Redskins interim coach Terry Robiskie.

Asked about Shawn Morris, Shanahan said: “Same personality for sure. I’m not sure they both run the same. But what a quality young man.”